Episode 95 - Hillbilly Smellegy feat. Matt Sitman (3/30/17)
Added 2017-03-30 22:41:36 +0000 UTCCommonweal editor Matt Sitman joins us to take apart everyone’s favorite new pathological study of the American yokel, “Hillbilly Elegy” by J.D. Vance. We discover that Vance, who has ditched his beloved hillbilly roots to become a venture capital Silicon Valley vampire, is an Ohio version of Raylan Givens.
Here is Matt’s personal essay in Dissent on abandoning the conservatism he learned in his blue collar upbringing: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/leaving-conservatism-behind-blue-collar-republican-progressive
Comments
bro i live in ohio look at my senator bro he's a fucking thiel remora dork
our lady of reclaimed teeth
2023-02-03 04:29:05 +0000 UTChad to listen in preparation for the midterms
James FitzGibbon
2022-10-25 18:06:50 +0000 UTCWould push back slightly on the 'he's a pretty good writer' meme. It's an easy read - but anyone who has read those Elizabeth/John Sherrell ghost written autobiographies that were popular in the evangelical world would be familiar with the particular house style he adopts. It's also kind of interesting to me that nowhere is it mentioned that his gf is originally from the subcontinent - the only tell is a the slightly unusual name - and yet magically there's no related conversation about race with any of his relatives when it comes to his marriage.
chris e
2017-04-09 10:08:15 +0000 UTCThis one is to good to keep behind bars
Charles Pfrommer
2017-04-06 04:18:51 +0000 UTCWill, your voice sounds like hell. You sick, boy? Or have you been geekin on some cigs? ;)
Stank Aaron
2017-04-05 12:39:52 +0000 UTCMake this eps public
phxmotoboi
2017-04-02 22:21:55 +0000 UTCThe Adolph Reed piece is exactly the right comparison, It is short readable and an essential read for understanding how we use individuals as stand-ins or interpreters for a whole, diverse culture. <a href="https://libcom.org/files/ReedWhatAreTheDrumsSayingBooker.pdf" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://libcom.org/files/ReedWhatAreTheDrumsSayingBooker.pdf</a>
John Williams
2017-04-02 20:23:56 +0000 UTCI mostly like Chris Arnade, but <a href="https://twitter.com/Chris_arnade/status/848597141803192321" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">occasionally he gives me reason to rethink that</a>:<blockquote>Look who I ran into in the Portsmouth McDonald's. @JDVance1!</blockquote>Sure enough, the accompanying photo shows Arnade with J.D. Vance himself. I wish Sitman or Elizabeth Catte or some other non-rightie Appalachian was also there at the table with them, if for no other reason than to give Arnade an alternative viewpoint, especially since Arnade seems to be gaining increasing media influence.
S.L.
2017-04-02 19:50:38 +0000 UTCbut everyone's cheering for Fightin' Uruk Hai to go to State this year.
Erik Weissengruber
2017-04-02 15:02:17 +0000 UTCamber we pronounce it appa-LATCH-uh not appa-LAY-cha. wish this one was public so everyone could use it to send to their relatives who gift this.
no
2017-04-02 00:10:06 +0000 UTCConservatives think black people are orcs. Libs think it's hillbillies.
Weoooo
2017-04-01 18:48:07 +0000 UTCWhere' they're poor but they have love, that's the one thing daddies make sure of, they shovel coal to make a poor man's dollar.
DM
2017-04-01 06:38:57 +0000 UTCVance's Tales of the Dying Oaf.
Ian Baranek
2017-04-01 02:10:56 +0000 UTC<a href="https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/847911923475730433" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">This tweet by Stoller</a> is pretty funny<blockquote>Hillbilly Elegy grifter JD Vance is moving to Ohio to do venture capital. And by Ohio he meant DC.</blockquote>But <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2017/03/22/steve-case-recruits-best-selling-author-for.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">the linked piece</a> actually says something else:<blockquote>D.C.-based Revolution LLC has hired J.D. Vance, the best-selling author of "Hillbilly Elegy," to be the latest partner at the venture firm. But don’t expect Vance to set up shop full time in Revolution’s District offices, since he will be splitting his time between Revolution HQ, Ohio and traveling the country to speak about his memoir.</blockquote>
S.L.
2017-04-01 00:10:11 +0000 UTCAmber's right, cousin-fucking used to be a mark of literal royalty until quite recently.
Sosialisten_
2017-03-31 21:53:10 +0000 UTC<a href="https://twitter.com/civilwarbore/status/847871214785875970" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Looks like something positive</a> is growing from that initially testy exchange. Fingers crossed! ...{reply to Greg Scheidler}
S.L.
2017-03-31 20:59:25 +0000 UTCAs a boy from the Deep South, thanks for this.
Kindrid Parker
2017-03-31 18:48:20 +0000 UTCmuch love to the Chapo Boys and Girl, from West Virginia
Zach Patterson
2017-03-31 18:42:26 +0000 UTCWow. Midway down the thread you even see a goddamn lanyard dick who worked in the Obama whitehouse spouting off with the typical brush-off excuse of "Well you weren't going to win anyway so why should we bother?
peepos
2017-03-31 15:19:08 +0000 UTCI remember Amber saying that, but didn't know the reference. Using the spelling "holler" and a bit of searching came up with the book title <i>"The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats"</i> by Jim Goad (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Redneck-Manifesto-Hillbillies-Americas-Scapegoats/dp/0684838648/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490967572&sr=1-1&keywords=the+redneck+manifesto" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">amazon-dot-com link</a>). That book title and description seems consistent with the tone and content of what Amber was saying.
S.L.
2017-03-31 13:45:44 +0000 UTC"holler" definition #13 in this forum thread is not bad: <a href="http://www.topix.com/forum/city/pikeville-ky/T8QQGR2S57BHNUPUH" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.topix.com/forum/city/pikeville-ky/T8QQGR2S57BHNUPUH</a>
Charles Campbell
2017-03-31 13:38:49 +0000 UTCHere are a couple general links, as long as I have the browser tabs open. <a href="http://www.100daysinappalachia.com/hello-world/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">100 Days in Appalachia</a> was started after the election for knowledgeable authors to post pieces in an effort to correct misconceptions about Appalachia. If you do a lot of reading of leftie folks online, you probably already know about Sarah Jones (<a href="https://twitter.com/onesarahjones" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">twitter</a>, <i>New Republic</i> <a href="https://newrepublic.com/authors/sarah-jones" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">author page</a>. Her family is of the hills, and she has maintained an interest in Appalachia. An opinion which seems to be shared by all of Vance's critics is that he'll go into politics at some point. If he is trying to be sly about such intentions, it ain't working.
S.L.
2017-03-31 13:22:04 +0000 UTCWhat is "the Hollar" (?) that Amber mentions at 45:20 (she says Jim Goad bemoans that it's becoming globalist)? Googling turned up a restaurant by that name, but it doesn't seem to be a chain.
Jack B
2017-03-31 13:11:40 +0000 UTCMost of what I heard in this episode is consistent with complaints I've seen from the academic Appalachian Studies folks, who are highly irked and concerned that Vance is unraveling their modest hard-earned gains in changing public perceptions of Appalachian communities. There was even a one-day workshop session specifically addressing Vance's book - east Tennessee-born Elizabeth Catte <a href="https://twitter.com/elizabethcatte/status/840932215047479296" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">live-tweeted it</a>. She has also posted elsewhere on the more general problem of <a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/03/21/liberal-shaming-of-appalachia-inside-the-media-elites-obsession-with-the-hillbilly-problem/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">biased perceptions of Appalachia</a>. That last link points out a problem Appalachian leftist activists share with leftists elsewhere: while opposition from conservatives is a serious problem, that is expected. It's the prejudice and presumptions from liberals that is most vexing. One of the latest mini-eruptions apparently comes compliments of Amanda "Bernie-Bro" Marcotte, whose offending words I haven't seen, but I did see some blow-back in the form of <a href="https://twitter.com/civilwarbore/status/847474971404247040" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">a tweet storm</a> - a glorious rant - from a rural Virginia sheep farmer (17 sheep!).
S.L.
2017-03-31 12:34:54 +0000 UTCThe jokes fell flat because no one but Matt had read the book.
DM
2017-03-31 11:00:09 +0000 UTCAmber calls out the urban, petty-bouj terror of the fecund hill dwellers that lies behind H.P. Lovecraft's "the hills rise wild," and, in further dehumanization, zombie horde fantasies.
Erik Weissengruber
2017-03-31 10:05:47 +0000 UTCI think it's definitely a different experience when the rich send their children to private schools and generally inhabit a sphere that is completely disparate to that of the urban poor, yeah. Compare to the rural rich family, who as Matt Sitman puts it, usually is just the owner of a successful business.
Mark Mollineaux
2017-03-31 07:51:15 +0000 UTCDo you think the urban poor have greater class consciousness? I think they have strong identities based around race, but so do the rural poor
iceland
2017-03-31 06:53:51 +0000 UTCmatt's tirade was appreciated and Amber was great as always
Kodi
2017-03-31 06:44:27 +0000 UTCGreat discussion, but really didn't buy the argument that rural poverty isn't very different than urban poverty―Matt Sitman at the end talked about the lack of class consciousness in central PA, and I think this correctly reflects that the class system is very different in rural vs. urban surroundings.
Mark Mollineaux
2017-03-31 01:55:15 +0000 UTCCommonweal
AU
2017-03-31 01:11:41 +0000 UTC"payday microloan" holy shit
leedo
2017-03-31 01:01:42 +0000 UTCRuby Tuesday sometimes has salad bar
Dave Rohlfman
2017-03-31 00:40:43 +0000 UTCGreat episode. Near the 57:00 mark Matt notes that he did a lot of reading on the economic history of the last 40-50 years. Do the Dry Boys have any recommendations in particular?
Steve Dixon
2017-03-31 00:29:36 +0000 UTCButternut was first used before the civil war, for people who moved up to farm/work in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio. Butternuts are tree nuts, used in fabric dye. They dye clothes a grey-brown color, and the term was thus used to describe copperheads from those states who opposed the civil war and shared crops and a lifestyle with southerners.
Mac Watson
2017-03-30 23:15:37 +0000 UTCHow much cum do you think it would take to fill up a Gundam suit?
Saying Monty Python Quotes In Lieu of Conversation
2017-03-30 23:15:22 +0000 UTCClass politics is where it's at!!! Braaaaaaaaatbraatttt
gamethatneverends
2017-03-30 22:47:04 +0000 UTCCletus was awesome. Most folk'll never lose a toe and then again some folk'll, like Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel!
CJ Canton
2017-03-30 22:45:13 +0000 UTC
